Updated

Updated · NBC News · Jul 31

Sheriff Returns 5 Stolen Civil War Cannonballs After TSA Flags Them at Alabama Airport

Updated

Updated · NBC News · Jul 31

Sheriff Returns 5 Stolen Civil War Cannonballs After TSA Flags Them at Alabama Airport

Q: How did a teenager secretly smuggle five heavy Civil War cannonballs into an unsuspecting grandmother's airport luggage?

He appears to have done it simply by placing the cannonballs in his grandmother’s checked bag without telling her. Authorities said the passenger was unaware the items were in her luggage. Investigators later determined her 17-year-old grandchild had taken the five inert Civil War-era cannonballs from a storage area at Fort Morgan and hidden them in the bag, wrapping them in paper towels. The largest were about the size of grapefruits and roughly as heavy as a small shotput. The reporting does not explain exactly when or where the teenager slipped them into the suitcase, so that part remains unclear. But law enforcement’s account is that there was no sophisticated smuggling method: the artifacts were allegedly stolen from the fort and covertly packed into the grandmother’s luggage before the airport screening. The concealment was enough to keep the grandmother from noticing, but not enough to avoid TSA X-ray screening. The bag alarmed at Gulf Shores International Airport, where TSA officers initially feared the objects could be explosives. Bomb specialists and the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office were called in before the items were confirmed to be inert cannonballs and traced back to Fort Morgan. The fort’s director declined to press charges, and the cannonballs were returned.

3 articles · Updated · NBC News · Jul 31

Five Civil War-era cannonballs were returned to Fort Morgan after TSA officers found them in a passenger’s checked bag at Gulf Shores International Airport.
TSA initially treated the items as a possible explosive threat because X-ray images showed five paper-towel-wrapped munitions, including some as large as a grapefruit, prompting calls to specialists and the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office.
Police later determined the cannonballs had been stolen from Fort Morgan; the traveler told investigators they did not know how the relics ended up in their possession.
Although the cannonballs proved inert, TSA barred them from the flight because artillery munitions are prohibited when officers cannot immediately confirm they are safe.